James Fennimore Cooper (1789-1851)

 

Born in Burlington, New Jersey, Cooper grew up in Cooperstown, a central New York State town founded by his father. Much of Cooper's knowledge of the forest and Native Americans was gathered firsthand during his boyhood in a region still very much a wilderness. After being expelled from Yale University in 1805 for his prankish behavior, Cooper served as a sailor in the merchant marine and as a midshipman in the United States Navy. He left naval service in 1811 to marry Susan DeLancey, and for several years managed his wife's income-producing estates in Westchester County, New York.

Cooper began his writing career at the age of 30. He wrote his first book, Precaution (1820), primarily to demonstrate to his wife that he could write a better novel than the one he was reading to her at the time. Precaution was a conventional novel of English manners and was not a success. Cooper chose for his second book a subject closer to home, and the result, The Spy (1821), a novel about the American Revolution (1775-1783) in New York State, was successful both in the United States and abroad. In 1823 Cooper wrote The Pioneers, the first of the five novels that make up the Leather-Stocking Tales. The remaining four books — The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Deerslayer (1841)— continue the story of Natty Bumppo, one of the most famous characters in American fiction. The Leather-Stocking Tales are noted for their portrayal of American subject matter in American settings. The hero of the tales, Natty Bumppo, embodies the conflict between preserving nature unspoiled and developing the land in the name of progress. He is a white frontiersman with ties to the settlers who nevertheless spends much of his time in the wilderness with Native Americans. The positioning of Natty Bumppo between two modes of living appealed to readers and contributed to Cooper's broad appeal, both in the United States and overseas. During his seven years abroad in Europe from 1826 to 1833, Cooper produced a variety of novels intended to portray realistically the feudalism of medieval Europe.

Cooper's first work after returning to the United States was A Letter to His Countrymen (1834), one of the several works of social criticism in which he expressed his conservative attitude toward democracy. The satire The Monikins (1835) and The American Democrat (1838) continue in the same vein. Despite attacks in the press for his snobbery and antidemocratic stance, Cooper's works remained popular.

Cooper's reputation remains somewhat equivocal. He is widely read in Europe, where his Leather-Stocking Tales contributed to the romantic notion of American frontier life. English novelists praised his work; American writers have been of differing opinions. Herman Melville admired Cooper's sea tales; Mark Twain questioned his knowledge of wilderness survival and ridiculed his handling of character and dialogue. Many critics today, however, perceive sympathetically Cooper's fear that unspoiled nature would eventually be destroyed by the encroachments of civilization.

Biography 7

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

 

Poe is most famous as the first master of the short-story form, especially tales of the mysterious and macabre. The literary merits of Poe's writings have been debated since his death, but his works have remained popular and many major American and European writers have professed their artistic debt to him.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Poe was orphaned in his early childhood and was raised by John Allan, a successful businessman of Richmond, Virginia. Taken by the Allan family to England at the age of six, Poe was placed in a private school. Upon returning to the United States in 1820, he continued to study in private schools. He attended the University of Virginia for a year, but in 1827 his foster father, displeased by the young man's drinking and gambling, refused to pay his debts and forced him to work as a clerk. Poe, disliking his new duties intensely, quit the job, thus estranging Allan, and went to Boston. There his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), was published anonymously. Shortly afterward Poe enlisted in the U.S. Army and served a two-year term. In 1829 his second volume of verse, Al Aaraaf, was published, and he effected a reconciliation with Allan, who secured him an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy. After only a few months at the academy Poe was dismissed for neglect of duty, and his foster father disowned him permanently. Poe's third book, Poems, appeared in 1831, and the following year he moved to Baltimore, where he lived with his aunt and her 11-year-old daughter, Virginia Clemm. The following year his tale “A MS. Found in a Bottle” won a contest sponsored by the Baltimore Saturday Visitor. From 1835 to 1837 Poe was an editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. In 1836 he married his young cousin.

Throughout the next decade, much of which was marred by his wife's long illness, Poe worked as an editor for various periodicals in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and in New York City. In 1847 Virginia died and Poe himself became ill; his disastrous addiction to liquor and his alleged use of drugs, recorded by contemporaries, may have contributed to his early death. Among Poe's poetic output, about a dozen poems are remarkable for their flawless literary construction and for their haunting themes and meters. In “The Raven” (1845), for example, the narrator is overwhelmed by melancholy and omens of death. Poe's extraordinary manipulation of rhythm and sound is particularly evident in “ The Bells” (1849), a poem that seems to echo with the chiming of metallic instruments. “Lenore” (1831) and “Annabel Lee” (1849) are verse lamentations on the death of a beautiful young woman.

In the course of his editorial work, Poe functioned largely as a book reviewer and produced a significant body of criticism; his essays were famous for their sarcasm, wit, and exposure of literary pretension. His evaluations have withstood the test of time and have earned for him a high place among American literary critics. Poe's theories on the nature of fiction and, in particular, his writings on the short story have had a lasting influence on American and European writers.

 

Poe, by his own choice, was a poet, but economic necessity forced him to turn to the relatively profitable genre of prose. Whether or not Poe invented the short story, it is certain that he originated the novel of detection. Perhaps his best-known tale in this genre is “The Gold Bug” (1843), about a search for buried treasure. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), “The Mystery of Marie Roget” (1842-1843), and “The Purloined Letter” (1844) are regarded as predecessors of the modern mystery, or detective, story. Many of Poe's tales are distinguished by the author's unique grotesque inventiveness in addition to his superb plot construction. Such stories include “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” (1838), noted for its blend of factual and fantastic material; “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839), in which the penetrating gloominess of the atmosphere is accented equally with plot and characterization; “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1842), a spine-tingling tale of cruelty and torture; “ The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843), in which a maniacal murderer is subconsciously haunted into confessing his guilt; and “The Cask of Amontillado” (1846), an eerie tale of revenge.

 

___________________________________________________________________________________

 

Make sure you know what to say in connection with the following topics.

· Сочинения Джона Смита.

· Анна Брэдстрит, первый поэт колониальной Америки.

· Б. Франклин как литератор: "Автобиография".

· Поэт американской революции Ф. Френо.

· Первое поколение национальных писателей.

· Вашингтон Ирвинг – родоначальник американского романтизма.

· Джеймс Купер – создатель американского исторического романа.

· Поиск идеала американского колониста.

· Романтизм Эдгара По: лирика, рассказы, критика.

_________________________________________________________________

ADDITIONAL READING

1. Study the following article and say what makes Franklin's contribution to American literature a controversial one.

Tang of the Soil – Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack

By Helen Mondloch

 

As a famed statesman serving in France around 1780, Benjamin Franklin once reportedly inspired the following rhetorical question from a bystander in a bustling Parisian crowd: "Who is this old peasant who has such a noble air?"

Many Franklin observers before and since have attested to the startling diversity of his character. In the essay "Franklin's Character", Carl Becker calls him a "true child of the Enlightenment [who]... lived on every social level in turn, was equally at ease with rich and poor, the cultured and the untutored, and spoke with equal facility the language of vagabonds and kings."

As Becker further reveals, Franklin maintained "a tang of the soil" even after a lifetime of magnanimous achievement. A man of humble Boston roots, the young Franklin worked long hours in his Philadelphia printshop, selling household goods and publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette. Beginning in 1732, he also published an annual edition of Poor Richard's Almanack, which became a best-seller – second only to the Bible – throughout the colonies.

In his thirties Franklin initiated a long career of public service, spearheading civic advancements such as paving and lighting Philadelphia streets and establishing America's first fire and police departments and lending library. He served as the city's first postmaster and later as postmaster general. By the time he was fifty, Franklin had also become a renowned scientist and inventor. Referring to his famous kite experiment and invention of the lightning rod, Immanuel Kant exalted him as the "new Prometheus who stole fire from heaven."

His inventions included the practical as well as the whimsical, among them, the Franklin stove, the water-glass harmonica, a rolling pin for copying letters, and bifocal glasses. The leading American scientist of his day, he probed smallpox and the common cold, earthquakes, sunspots, and other topics he expounded in his letters. As a revered statesman in his later years, Franklin campaigned at home and abroad for American independence, serving in the First Continental Congress and signing the Declaration of Independence.

While this lifetime of varied and prodigious accomplishments reflects rare gifts, Franklin never lost what Becker calls his "universal" spirit. That he understood the toils of average citizens, that he sustained the power to amuse and inspire them with his provincial wit, is evidenced best by the enormous popularity of the Almanack.

 

Borrowed wisdom

For twenty-five years, the homespun persona of Poor Richard Saunders, a humble farmer and philomath (lover of learning), narrated the comic prefaces to the almanac, making readers privy to his domestic hardships and outlandish astrological predictions for the year ahead. Like similar publications, the almanac itself provided practical information about farming, weather patterns, travel routes, and calendar events. Thanks to the pithy poetry and maxims sprinkled throughout, Poor Richard, also called "Poor Dick," earned fame and affection as a folk pontificator. His memorable verses--most of which were borrowed by Franklin from the poets and sages of bygone eras--wove themselves into the fabric of a nascent American culture.

Probing a range of human follies and virtues, Poor Richard became best known for his maxims on prudence, industry, and thrift. His creed is summed up by his famous prescription for prosperity: "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." In the preface to his final almanac edition, Franklin extrapolated Richard's many maxims about frugal living from old Almanack issues and compiled them under a humorous pretext. Later published separately as "The Way to Wealth," the piece was translated into several languages and widely read at home and abroad as a primer on the capitalist spirit.

Poor Richard's popularity with his contemporaries yielded to a tradition of critical rebuke in the centuries that followed. Condemned as shallow and materialistic, the Almanack has continued to affect American thought in ways its ingenious creator probably never imagined.

Like many elements of colonial culture, the Almanack was conceived with borrowings from the British. In time it evolved into a cornerstone of Americana, something distinctly "Franklinian." Most of the Almanack's poems and proverbs did not originate with Franklin. He gleaned his verses from masters whose works he clearly relished, including Pope, Dryden, Gay, Bacon, and Aesop. Franklin's borrowing is the subject of an anachronistic slander in the May 2002 issue of American Heritage. Dubbing Franklin a "Founding Filcher," the magazine's "History Now" column cites an 1860 article from Historical Magazine as an early expose of Franklin's alleged thievery. A nineteenth-century historian therein provided a comparison chart, reproduced in Heritage, displaying more than a dozen Almanack sayings that were either taken verbatim or slightly modified from a collection of English proverbs published in 1678.

While Franklin never felt compelled to credit his sources by name--no doubt because the literary protocols of his day differed from our own-- he did acknowledge his borrowings. In The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (begun in 1771 but never completed), he explained that his maxims "contained the Wisdom of many Ages and Nations." The phrase echoed one uttered by Poor Richard himself to describe his sources. ("Not a tenth part of the Wisdom was my own," he confesses in the final preface.) Similarly, in his 1747 preface, Saunders speaks with characteristic charm and self-debasing humor in the following revelation about the poems featured each month:

"I need not tell thee that not many of them were of my own making. If thou hast any judgment in poetry, thou wilt easily discern the workman from the bungler. I know as well as thee that I am no poet born, and it is a trade I never learnt, nor indeed could learn. If I make verses, 'tis in spite of nature and my stars I write. Why then should I give my readers bad lines of my own, when good ones of other people are of plenty?"

 

An institution

Even if Poor Richard--in this spirit of common sense so abundantly endowed in his creator--borrowed freely from the wisdom of the ages, he swiftly emerged as an institution unto himself. Van Doren remarks that "the essence of Poor Richard, his humorous, homely character, was Franklin's own creation." Occasionally injecting a saucy commentary, his nagging wife, Bridget, also played a one-of-a-kind role in Poor Richard's folksy realm.

In his essay "The Almanac," included in Barbour's collection, Bruce Granger probes Poor Richard's success. He notes that Franklin considered the Almanack a "proper Vehicle for conveying Instruction among the common people, who bought scarce any other books," as revealed in the Autobiography. Accordingly, Franklin strove to make the Almanack both entertaining and useful.

"He approached this task with seeming earnest," says Granger, "thereby escaping the prosaic dullness that characterized most colonial almanacs." Franklin's memoir proudly noted that his almanac sold ten thousand copies a year--roughly one per every hundred citizens, according to many colonial observers.

His success clearly derived from his homely characters but also his crafty adaptations of verses unearthed from his voluminous library. "As a proverb stylist who often recast what he borrowed, Franklin was guided by such neoclassic ideals as perspicuity, elegance, and cadence," comments Granger. For example, Franklin took a line like "fresh fish and new-come guests smell, but that they are three days old" and refined it to read, "Fish and Visitors stink in three days." On occasion, says Granger, "yielding to a coarseness that was nature to him," Franklin altered his sayings "in the direction of the obscene or bawdy." Thus, "A good friend is my nearest relation" became "Relation without friendship... [is] not worth a farto."

According to Van Doren, such coarseness, vastly appealing to Franklin's contemporaries, was prevalent in Poor Richard's early "gamy years" but became largely overshadowed by his more didactic passages on hard work and thrift, many of which appeared later. "The earlier Poor Richard was by no means always on the side of calculating prudence," says Van Doren.

Granger tell us that beginning in 1739, "Richard the honest philomath tends to be obscured by the emergence of Richard the moralizing philosopher." In his preface for that year, Richard foreshadows some coming innovations: "Besides the usual Things expected in an Almanack, I hope the profess'd Teachers of Mankind will excuse my scattering here and there some instructive Hints in Matters of Morality and Religion."

He is quick, however, to assure readers, with typical facetiousness, that his annual guide will not surrender its charm and levity (a promise Franklin made sure he kept): "Be not disturbed, O grave and sober Reader, if among the many serious Sentences in my Book, thou findest me trifling now and then, and talking idly.... Squeamish stomachs cannot eat without Pickles; which 'tis true are good for nothing else, but they provoke an Appetite"

In the years that followed, Franklin's didacticism focused increasingly on matters of personal economy. His verses urged hard work and prudent savings not only as a means of attaining security but as the path to virtue. Likewise, they condemned sloth, credit payments, and frivolous spending. Van Doren argues that such preachings, rooted in the Protestant work ethic, shaped a young nation's sensibilities and ultimately prevailed as the Almanack's legacy. That legacy was sealed, he says, by the 1758 publication of "The Way to Wealth," a witty compilation of these aphorisms that proved immensely popular.

Probing the underpinnings of this thematic shift, Van Doren declares that Franklin the moralist "could see that the times called for Poor Richard's counsel.... Few men of privilege had come from Europe to America. They had not needed to emigrate. Few of the European poor had come. They had not been able to. The colonists were 'middling people' and they must work and save if they were to survive and prosper."

 

Influence and accolades

After a quarter-century of counsel on a range of human affairs, Poor Richard had clearly made an impression on his "middling" contemporaries. In the Autobiography, Franklin modestly accepted credit for spearheading an economic upswing with "The Way to Wealth": "In Pennsylvania, as it discouraged useless expense in foreign Superfluities, some thought, it had its share of Influence in producing that growing Plenty of Money which was observable for several Years after its publication."

In a similar vein, Palmeri examines Richard's political impact, especially after 1749, the year Franklin expanded the almanac to create Poor Richard Improved. Besides unifying the calendar poems, he incorporated short essays on scientific and historical themes. The work took on a "strongly Whiggish" flavor, says Palmeri, paying tribute to such Whig luminaries as Locke and Addison and exposing the corruption of the British monarchy. He credits Poor Richard Improved and the politically charged almanacs that succeeded it with shaping the "idea of an American nation and the ideal hardworking citizen of that nation."

Chris Looby affirms Richard's far-reaching cultural influence in his biography, Benjamin Franklin. Says Looby, "The proverbs and maxims in Poor Richard's [Almanack] were endlessly quoted and repeated over the years until they became the `common sense' of millions of Americans.... Franklin must be credited, therefore, with forming... a large part of the characteristic outlook and values of a burgeoning popular culture. He was America's first pop philosopher and moralist, the precursor to such men as Mark Twain and Horatio Alger."

Poor Richard's aura prevailed through the American Revolution and beyond, as evidenced by an accolade bestowed upon him by John Paul Jones. The famed naval fighter christened his warship Bonhomme Richard, the sobriquet by which Poor Richard was fondly known to the French.

Given this hold on the sensibilities of a newborn nation, Poor Richard and his famous creator inevitably came under fire when the nation paused to examine itself beginning in the nineteenth century. In his "Commentary on Poor Richard's Almanack," included in The Autobiography and Other Writings, Frank Donovan declares that "The Way to Wealth" generated "a mistaken image of [Franklin] that was passed down to posterity" – that of a "priggish, parsimonious money grubber." Donovan assails that view as entirely false, arguing that Franklin spurned untold riches by refusing to patent his inventions, doing so because he felt that "any invention which benefited his fellow man should be made available for the public good."

While Franklin attracted his share of personal criticism in the century following his death, his creed evoked a harsher judgment. Barbour discusses a long-running tradition of rebuke for the capitalist principles incarnated by Poor Richard and complemented by the rags to riches story told in the Autobiography. He begins with the transcendentalist writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, remarking that "it is possible to say that [Emerson's] whole career was a quarrel with the Franklinian spirit and the Franklinian dream." Moreover, Barbour explains that "what [Emerson] saw and feared in the Franklinian outlook was not just acquisitiveness but moral complacency, a satisfaction with the ordinary self, apparently validated by economic achievement."

Franklin's most scornful and well-known critic, however, was British novelist D.H. Lawrence. With his passionate refrain that "the soul of man is a dark, vast forest," Lawrence launched a scathing attack on Franklin's "dreary theme" of human perfectibility in Studies in Classic American Literature (excerpted by Barbour). Lawrence reflects that "it has taken me many years and countless smarts to get out of that barbed wire moral enclosure that Poor Richard rigged up." With a brazen "loud curse against Benjamin and the American corral," he offers alternatives to thirteen of Richard's soul-binding adages. On sexuality, for instance, whereas Richard says, "Rarely use venery but for health and offspring," Lawrence responds, "Never 'use' venery at all. Follow your passional impulse, if it be answered in the other being." Lawrence accused Franklin of reducing the human spirit to a level of triteness, exploiting God as "the everlasting [John] Wanamaker," and setting Him "aloft on a pillar of dollars." Though failing to give Franklin credit for his many thought-provoking passages, Lawrence did expose the general shortcomings of Richard's pithy adages. Indeed, these are at times pragmatic to a fault, lacking a sense of passion and individualism.

In the final analysis, however, Poor Richard's contributions must be taken in context. With his timeless wit, Franklin brought comfort and inspiration to a populace in its infancy, one struggling to gain an economic foothold and a sense of self. While the Almanack grew and changed over the years, Poor Richard remained steadfast in his homage to the common folk, exalting their everyday toils while inviting them to laugh at themselves in the process. He was thus clearly right for the times. The revulsion that later erupted toward the Franklinian creed likewise marked a healthy progression in the nation's growth, a time for reassessing values. That Americans still enjoy the intellectual freedom to argue their convictions – and to laugh at themselves in the process – bespeaks the blessings of a culture upon which Poor Richard made his mark.

2. Read the poem below and decide how to translate NEVERMORE into Russian.

THE RAVEN
by Edgar Allan Poe (1845)

 

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door –

Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow- sorrow for the lost Lenore -
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore -

Nameless here for evermore.

 

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
''Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -
This it is, and nothing more."

 

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"- here I opened wide the door; -
Darkness there, and nothing more.

 

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore!"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"-

Merely this, and nothing more.

 

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice:
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore-
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;-
'Tis the wind and nothing more."

 

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door-
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door-
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

 

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore-
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

 

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning- little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door-
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."

 

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered- not a feather then he fluttered-
Till I scarcely more than muttered, "other friends have flown before-
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

 

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore-
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never- nevermore'."

 

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore-
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

 

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

 

Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee- by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite - respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

 

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!- prophet still, if bird or devil!-
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-
On this home by horror haunted- tell me truly, I implore-
Is there- is there balm in Gilead?- tell me- tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

 

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil- prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us- by that God we both adore-
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

 

"Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend," I shrieked, upstarting-
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

 

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted- nevermore!

__________________________________________________________________

 

READ MORE – FOREVER MORE! – ABOUT THE ABOVE AUTHORS IN:

 

1. Brodey, K. Malgaretti, F. Focus on English and American Literature. – M.: Айрис-пресс, 2003.

 

2. Gower, P. Past and Present. An Anthology of British and American Literature. – Longman, 1995.

 

МАТЕРИАЛ 7 (2 часа)

 

“ПОЗОЛОЧЕННЫЙ ВЕК” В АМЕРИКАНСКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЕ

(1876 – 1816)

1. Read the biographies below and summarize each in 5-7 sentences. Dwell on the writers' contribution to American and world literature.

Biography 1

Twain, Mark, pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), American writer and humorist, whose best work is characterized by broad, often irreverent humor or biting social satire. Twain's writing is also known for realism of place and language, memorable characters, and hatred of hypocrisy and oppression.

Born in Florida, Missouri, Clemens moved with his family to Hannibal, Missouri, a port on the Mississippi River, when he was four years old. There he received a public school education. After the death of his father in 1847, Clemens was apprenticed to two Hannibal printers, and in 1851 he began setting type for and contributing sketches to his brother Orion's Hannibal Journal. Subsequently he worked as a printer in Keokuk, Iowa; New York City; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and other cities. Later Clemens was a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River until the American Civil War (1861-1865) brought an end to travel on the river. In 1861 Clemens served briefly as a volunteer soldier in the Confederate cavalry. Later that year he accompanied his brother to the newly created Nevada Territory, where he tried his hand at silver mining. In 1862 he became a reporter on the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nevada, and in 1863 he began signing his articles with the pseudonym Mark Twain, a Mississippi River phrase meaning “two fathoms deep.” After moving to San Francisco, California, in 1864, Twain met American writers Artemus Ward and Bret Harte, who encouraged him in his work. In 1865 Twain reworked a tale he had heard in the California gold fields, and within months the author and the story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” had become national sensations.

In 1867 Twain lectured in New York City, and in the same year he visited Europe and Palestine. He wrote of these travels in The Innocents Abroad (1869), a book exaggerating those aspects of European culture that impress American tourists. In 1870 he married Olivia Langdon. After living briefly in Buffalo, New York, the couple moved to Hartford, Connecticut. Much of Twain's best work was written in the 1870s and 1880s in Hartford or during the summers at Quarry Farm, near Elmira, New York. Roughing It (1872) recounts his early adventures as a miner and journalist; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) celebrates boyhood in a town on the Mississippi River; A Tramp Abroad (1880) describes a walking trip through the Black Forest of Germany and the Swiss Alps; The Prince and the Pauper (1882), a children's book, focuses on switched identities in Tudor England; Life on the Mississippi (1883) combines an autobiographical account of his experiences as a river pilot with a visit to the Mississippi nearly two decades after he left it; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) satirizes oppression in feudal England.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), the sequel to Tom Sawyer, is considered Twain's masterpiece. The book is the story of the title character, known as Huck, a boy who flees his father by rafting down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave, Jim. The pair's adventures show Huck (and the reader) the cruelty of which men and women are capable. Another theme of the novel is the conflict between Huck's feelings of friendship with Jim, who is one of the few people he can trust, and his knowledge that he is breaking the laws of the time by helping Jim escape. Huckleberry Finn, which is almost entirely narrated from Huck's point of view, is noted for its authentic language and for its deep commitment to freedom. Huck's adventures also provide the reader with a panorama of American life along the Mississippi before the Civil War. Twain's skill in capturing the rhythms of that life help make the book one of the masterpieces of American literature.

In 1884 Twain formed the firm Charles L. Webster and Company to publish his and other writers' works, notably Personal Memoirs (two volumes, 1885-1886) by American general and president Ulysses S. Grant. A disastrous investment in an automatic typesetting machine led to the firm's bankruptcy in 1894. A successful worldwide lecture tour and the book based on those travels, Following the Equator (1897), paid off Twain's debts.

Twain's work during the 1890s and the 1900s is marked by growing pessimism and bitterness—the result of his business reverses and, later, the deaths of his wife and two daughters. Significant work of this period is Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (1896), a sentimental biography. Twain's other later writings include short stories, the best known of which are “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” (1899) and “The War Prayer” (1905); philosophical, social, and political essays; the manuscript of “The Mysterious Stranger,” an uncompleted piece that was published posthumously in 1916; and autobiographical dictations.

Twain's work was inspired by the unconventional West, and the popularity of his work marked the end of the domination of American Literature by New England writers. He is justly renowned as a humorist but was not always appreciated by the writers of his time as anything more than that. Successive generations of writers, however, recognized the role that Twain played in creating a truly American literature. He portrayed uniquely American subjects in a humorous and colloquial, yet poetic, language. His success in creating this plain but evocative language precipitated the end of American reverence for British and European culture and for the more formal language associated with those traditions. His adherence to American themes, settings, and language set him apart from many other novelists of the day and had a powerful effect on such later American writers as Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, both of whom pointed to Twain as an inspiration for their own writing.

Biography 2

 

London, Jack (1876-1916), American writer, whose work combined powerful realism and humanitarian sentiment. He was deeply influenced by Darwin’s ideas of constant struggle in nature and “the survival of the fittest”. Not surprisingly, the main characters of some of London’s best stories are animals.

London was born John Griffith London in San Francisco. From age 10, London worked at various odd jobs, later trying such occupations as a seal hunter, an oyster pirate, an explorer, a war correspondent, a gold miner, and a rich farmer. In 1897 and 1898 he participated in the Alaska gold rush. Upon his return to the San Francisco area, he began to write about his experiences. A collection of his short stories, The Son of the Wolf, was published in 1900. London's colorful life, during which he wrote more than 50 books and which included enormous popular successes as an author, experience as a war correspondent, and two stormy marriages, ended at the age of 40.

Many of his stories, including his masterpiece The Call of the Wild (1903), deal with the reversion of a civilized creature to the primitive state. London's style—brutal, vivid, and exciting—made him enormously popular outside the United States; his works were translated into many languages. London's important works include People of the Abyss (1903) and The Iron Heel (1907), in which he showed himself as a Marxian socialist. The Sea Wolf (1904) is a novel based on the author's experiences on a seal hunting ship. Martin Eden (1909) is an autobiographical novel about a writer's life. His other works include John Barleycorn (1913), an autobiographical novel about London's struggle against alcoholism; and The Star Rover (1915), a collection of related stories dealing with reincarnation.

Biography 3

Henry, O., pseudonym of William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), American writer of short stories, best known for his ironic plot twists and surprise endings. Born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, O. Henry attended school only until age 15, when he dropped out to work in his uncle’s drugstore. During his 20s he moved to Texas, where he worked for more than ten years as a clerk and a bank teller. O. Henry did not write professionally until he reached his mid-30s, when he sold several pieces to the Detroit Free Press. In 1894 he founded a short-lived weekly humor magazine.

In 1896 O. Henry was charged with embezzling funds from the First National Bank of Austin, Texas, where he had worked from 1891 to 1894. The amount of money was small and might have been an accounting error; however, he chose to flee to Honduras rather than stand trial. Learning that his wife was dying, he returned to Texas in 1897 and, after her death, turned himself in to authorities. He served three years of a five-year sentence at the federal penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio, where he first began to write short stories and use the pseudonym O. Henry. Released from prison, O. Henry moved to New York City in 1901 and began writing full time. In his stories he made substantial use of his knowledge of Texas, Central America, and life in prison. He also became fascinated by New York street life, which provided a setting for many of his later stories. During the last ten years of his life, O. Henry became one of the most popular writers in America, publishing over 500 short stories in dozens of widely read periodicals. O. Henry’s most famous stories, such as “The Gift of the Magi,” “The Furnished Room,” and “The Ransom of Red Chief,” make simple yet effective use of paradoxical coincidences to produce ironic endings.

For example, in “The Gift of the Magi” a husband sells his watch to buy his wife a Christmas present of a pair of hair combs; unbeknownst to him, she cuts and sells her long hair to buy him a Christmas present of a new chain for his watch. His style of storytelling became a model not only for short fiction, but also for American motion pictures and television programs. Writing at the rate of more than one story per week, O. Henry published ten collections of stories during a career that barely spanned a decade. They are Cabbages and Kings (1904), The Four Million (1906), Heart of the West (1907), The Trimmed Lamp (1907), The Gentle Grafter (1908), The Voice of the City (1908), Options (1909), Roads of Destiny (1909), Whirligigs (1910), and Strictly Business (1910).

 

Biographies 4-7

Sinclair, Upton Beall (1878-1968), American writer and social and economic reformer, born in Baltimore, Maryland, and educated at the College of the City of New York and Columbia University. Although he was unsuccessful as a Socialist Party candidate for political office, his vigorous criticism of abuses in American economic and social life helped lay the groundwork for a number of reforms. In the 1920s he helped found the American Civil Liberties Union.

Sinclair is the most famous of the Muckrakers, a group of writers who were relentless critics of the nation’s political, social and economic evils early in the 20th century (1900 – 1914). The author of 90 books, Sinclair became well known after the publication of his novel The Jungle (1906), which exposed the unsanitary and miserable working conditions in the stockyards of Chicago, Illinois, and led to an investigation by the federal government and the subsequent passage of pure food laws. The novel tells a story of an immigrant family, the Redcuses, who come to America with dreams of a better life. But they only experience a series of horrors and tragedies. Jack London described the novel as “the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of wage-slavery”.

Sinclair wrote other social and political novels and studies advocating prohibition and criticizing the newspaper industry. His novels were always a form of propaganda. As works of literature, they seem to be lesser achievements. His well-known series of 11 novels concerned with Lanny Budd, a wealthy American secret agent who participates in important international events, includes World's End (1940) and Dragon's Teeth (1942), which dealt with Germany under the Nazis and won the 1943 Pulitzer Prize in fiction. He also wrote The Autobiography of Upton Sinclair (1962).

Norris, Frank (1870-1902), is an outstanding writer of the naturalist school. His characters are often unable to control their own lives. They are moved around by “passions” or by “fate”. The whole world, according to Norris, is a battlefield between uncontrollable forces. The Octopus (1901) is a novel about the battle between Californian farmers and the Southern Pacific Railroad. The farmers are defeated by the inevitable “economic” forces. In The Pit (1903) Norris uses wheat again as the symbol of life. Many of the techniques Norris used for description (for instance, his repetitions and powerful language) seem closer to such romantic writers as Hawthorne.

Bellamy, Edward (1850-1898), American essayist and journalist, born in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, and educated at Union College. He worked briefly for the New York Evening Post and later joined the Springfield Union as editor and book reviewer. In 1880 he founded the Springfield Daily News, but he thereafter turned from journalism to literature. In 1888 Bellamy published his most important work, Looking Backward, 2000-1887, a depiction of an ideal socialistic society in the year 2000. This best-selling novel inspired the formation of many socialistic clubs; in order to expound his views, Bellamy founded the journal New Nation in 1891. The most famous American “utopian” novel, the book has a purpose of criticizing capitalist America of the 1880s. A man goes to sleep and wakes up in the year 2000. He finds an entirely new society which is much better than his own. Today, the book seems a little bit too optimistic. Bellamy was sure that society’s problems could be solved on by a higher level of industrialization. Today, many people are not so sure.

Biography 8

Dreiser, Theodore Herman Albert (1871-1945), American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. Although some critics regarded his style as clumsy and plodding, Dreiser was generally recognized as an American literary pioneer.

Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, Dreiser was a reporter for the Chicago Daily Globe in 1892, dramatic editor and traveling correspondent for the St. Louis Globe Democrat from 1892 to 1893, and traveling correspondent for the St. Louis Republic from 1893 to 1894. His career as a novelist began in 1900 with Sister Carrie, which he wrote in the intervals between work for various magazines. The novel tells the story of a small-town girl who moves to Chicago and eventually becomes a Broadway star in New York City. It also traces the decline and eventual suicide of her lover. As a result of public outcry against the novel for its depiction of unrepentant and unpunished characters and for its frank treatment of sexual issues, the publisher withdrew the book from public sale. Dreiser continued writing, however, and he served as managing editor of Broadway Magazine from 1906 to 1907 and as editor from 1907 to 1910.

By the time Dreiser's second novel, Jenny Gerhardt, was published in 1911, his work had found influential supporters, including the British novelist H. G. Wells, and he was able to devote himself entirely to literature. Dreiser's writings continued to excite controversy. In The Financier (1912) and The Titan (1914), he drew harsh portraits of a type of ruthless businessman. In The “Genius” (1915), he presented a study of the artistic temperament in a mercenary society. This novel increased his influence among young American writers, who acclaimed him leader of a new school of social realism. Real fame, however, did not come to Dreiser until 1925, when his An American Tragedy (1925) had great popular success. The novel, based on an actual murder case and concerned with the efforts of a weak young man to rise from pious poverty into glamorous society, was dramatized and made into a motion picture.

Dreiser believed in representing life honestly in his fiction. He accomplished this through accurate detail, especially in his descriptions of the urban settings in which many of his stories take place. In his naturalistic portrayals Dreiser saw his characters as victims of social and economic forces, and of fate, all of which conspire against them. The American writer Sinclair Lewis hailed Sister Carrie as “the first book free of English literary influence.” Toward the end of his career, Dreiser, a member of the United States Communist Party, worked to promote his political views. Earlier he had visited the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and, in Dreiser Looks at Russia (1928), had offered a sympathetic portrait of the country. Dreiser's last novels, The Bulwark and The Stoic, appeared posthumously, in 1946 and 1947.

 

2. Self-check Questions:

· Why do you think the period was nicknamed "The Gilded Age"?

· Which ideas were predominant in the writings of the period in question?

· Did the writers of the period have any political sympathies?

· How can one best sum up each writer's contribution to world literature?

· Why are some of the books by these authors still widely read?

· If offered four selections of books by Twain, London, O. Henry or Dreiser, which one would you choose?